Jesus The Bread Of Life

Jesus said "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

There’s a lovely passage found in Genesis 26 that describes the movement of a nomadic, god loving people including Isaac. And this passage holds up what I call the true work life balance.

Genesis 26:25

Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well.

Isaac built his church to look after the people’s spiritual health. Pitched his tent – looking after their home life and dig the well – their work or careers – to feed the animals and provide for the family.

Perfect work life balance – God, Home, Work.

Now that’s another sermon for another day but for me bread is all of those things. I am a baker of bread so it’s my work. I met my wife at baking school some 29 years ago (married 24 years ago) and my wife is a baker. My daughter has a part time job whilst she is at college doing film production media type studies – and she’s a baker. My father was a baker, my mother was a baker. Many of my friends are bakers. My home town is Barnsley – I was born in Barnsley. Did you know that there are more bakers per head of population in Barnsley than any other town in Britain – probably even Europe. And I am a local preacher that worship’s and follows Jesus Christ – who said that HE is the living bread – the bread of life.

So for me personally I am surrounded by the bread of strife, the bread of wife and the bread of life. My whole life is about bread of one sort or another.

Bread is mentioned 256 times in the bible.

Bethlehem means “house of bread”

The Jewish people celebrate feast of unleavened bread. Exodus 12 Exodus 23 and Leviticus 23

1 Kings 22:27 Put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely.’ "

Here eating only bread is seen as punishment.

Psalm 78:25

Men ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.

Proverbs 28:21

To show partiality is not good— yet a man will do wrong for a piece of bread. I remember in the 1970s when there was a bread shortage in the UK and there were riots.

Proverbs 30:8

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

Bread appears to be something basic and honourable.

Ecclesiastes 11:1

Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.

Solomon here is using bread to illustrate that we must take risks and grasp opportunities.

In Ezekiel there is a recipe for bread that has been reproduced today and apparently it is very nutritionally balanced.

Ezekiel 4:9

"Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side.

In the bible we are told that we have to earn our own bread (2 Thess 3:12)

In the feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 3000 - miracles of Jesus – the people are well fed on fish and bread.

Bread is one of the symbols of communion where we talk about “breaking bread” – a symbol of coming together in Jesus. Let us break bread together is an invitation to cordiality.

And bread is mentioned many more times in the bible as both a symbol of food generally, as a symbol for something else or as literal bread.

And so we come to the passage in John’s Gospel – John 6:35

Jesus said "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Is anybody on a diet? I’m on a diet !

Whenever you are on a diet you get hungry and you moaps about looking for food. First you look in the fridge, then the cupboard, then the biscuit tin, back to the fridge.

You eat it and then think – I wish I hadn’t eaten that – And you’re still hungry – you don’t know what you want.

This symbolises what Jesus is talking about when he said “I am the bread of life” or “the living bread”

Many people in our society suffer because they are hungry – spiritually hungry. They may try out different faith’s, cults or belief systems but they are never satisfied – always spiritually hungry. Always that something missing from their lives, a void deep within them that they moaps around trying to fill.